The Department of Construction of Hanoi has proposed to recall and auction resettlement apartments if they are not used in two years to recoup investment.

Sai Dong urban area

In the past years, Hanoi authorities started receiving orders to build commercial resettlement apartment buildings. For the 2017-2020 period, about 14,525 apartments of 20 projects will be built. However, 372 households that were allocated apartments from 2015 to 2017 haven't completed the contracts or moved in yet.

There are 44 apartments on Le Duc Tho Street and 110 apartments in the Nam Trung Yen urban area. Three apartment blocks in North Tu Liem were completed in 2014 but only a few have moved in. According to the residents, the apartment quality is really poor, the elevators often broke and the buildings are far away from the city's centre.

Three buildings in Sai Dong urban area, Long Bien District, also face the same fate.

The apartments have been left abandoned because residents didn't want to move in. Nguyen Dac Thao, deputy head of the Urban Management Office under the Department of Construction, said only 76 apartments didn't have usage plan. In most cases, the residents didn't want to move in because of the construction quality or they wanted to resell the apartments at higher prices.

"In order to avoid wasting the state budget, we have suggested recalling the apartments if no one moves in after two years," he said.

Tran Chung from Vietnam Federation of Civil Engineering Association said the government could consider paying an appropriate amount of compensation for the residents to buy the house they want instead of building resettlement apartments. They need a clear plan as many resettlement areas were built very quickly while the projects were behind schedule, stagnant or cancelled.

"The link between the resettlement areas and the constructions must be closer to meet public expectations," Chung said.